Background

Notes and format last updated May 7, 2020

Starting on the May 7th update, the NY Times began including probable covid cases/deaths along with confirmed. This mostly affects death counts – for certain geographies that include probable COVID deaths in addition to confirmed, these are now added to the totals. For the time being, they were all added to the May 6th totals, causing a big spike at the U.S. level. Over time, NY Times will revise their historical counts and distribute these added deaths when they actually occurred, so the spike should fade.

Growth rates

Heat maps

  • The two heat maps below compare how quickly total cases or deaths have grown at various times in our respective geopgraphies.
  • The first plot compares growth rate for total cases; the second, growth rate for total deaths.
  • The metric used is doubling time, by which I mean how quickly total cases or deaths are doubling.
  • The plots track that doubling time at each date for our geographies. Darker colors reflect shorter doubling times, and thus periods of faster growth.
    • You can use the plots to track each geography over time and to compare the geographies to one another.
    • You can also compare the cases and death charts, to see how faster periods of death growth follow faster periods of case growth.

Case growth rates

  • This section charts the growth rate of both total and new cases for each of our respective geographies. Each geography has its own chart, and then that chart will have a trendline for total cases and new cases.
    • There are only plots for the U.S. and states because the numbers for the counties are too small to generate worthwhile trendlines in this section.
  • Note that we’re charting growth rate and not a count of cases, so don’t think of these as the standard “curve” that we hear about in the news and that we want to flatten. Instead, these growth rate charts help track more precisely what we can only estimate when we see those other curves. For these growth rate charts, if the line is above zero, the metric we are tracking (total or new cases) is continuing to grow. If the growth rate line is going up, it’s growing more quickly each day; if it’s going down but still above zero, it’s growing less quickly (but still growing). Only when the growth rate lines go below zero has the metric stopped growing.
  • Each of these two lines uses rolling windows to calculate a growth rate for that particular metric. I do the calculation differently for each to smooth out some of the large day-to-day discrepancies in new case reporting at the state level.
    • For total cases, the trendlines are a rolling 3-day average of daily growth rates in total cases. We want to see these decline (and almost all are), but they can’t go below zero. This is because we’re tracking growth rate and a growth rate line below zero would mean total cases have gone down, which can’t happen. They can only grow less quickly, which means we want to see the total case line get as close to zero as possible.
    • For new cases, the trendlines show a rolling 3-day average of daily growth rate in the rolling 7-day average of new cases. Including two rolling periods in this average helps smooth out crazy spikes at the state level that result from large day-to-day changes. Unlike the lines for total cases, we want to watch for the lines for new cases to get consistently below zero and stay there. That means that we are consistently seeing fewer new cases on a daily basis.

U.S.

Our states

Death growth rates

  • This section charts the growth rate of both total and new deaths for each of our respective geographies. Each geography has its own chart, and then that chart will have a trendline for total deaths and new deaths.
    • There are only plots for the U.S. and states because the numbers for the counties are too small to generate worthwhile trendlines in this section.
  • Note that we’re charting growth rate and not a count of deaths, so don’t think of these as the standard “curve” that we hear about in the news and that we want to flatten. Instead, these growth rate charts help track more precisely what we can only estimate when we see those other curves. For these growth rate charts, if the line is above zero, the metric we are tracking (total or new deaths) is continuing to grow. If the growth rate line is going up, it’s growing more quickly each day; if it’s going down but still above zero, it’s growing less quickly (but still growing). Only when the growth rate lines go below zero has the metric stopped growing.
  • Each of these two lines uses rolling windows to calculate a growth rate for that particular metric. I do the calculation differently for each to smooth out some of the large day-to-day discrepancies in new death reporting at the state level.
    • For total deaths, the trendlines are a rolling 3-day average of daily growth rates in total deaths. We want to see these decline (and almost all are), but they can’t go below zero. This is because we’re tracking growth rate and a growth rate line below zero would mean total deaths have gone down, which can’t happen. They can only grow less quickly, which means we want to see the total death line get as close to zero as possible.
    • For new deaths, the trendlines show a rolling 3-day average of daily growth rate in the rolling 7-day average of new deaths. Including two rolling periods in this average helps smooth out crazy spikes at the state level that result from large day-to-day changes. Unlike the lines for total deaths, we want to watch for the lines for new deaths to get consistently below zero and stay there. That means that we are consistently seeing fewer new deaths on a daily basis.

U.S.

Our states

By population rankings

This section tracks metrics for states and counties normalized for population (number of cases or deaths per million residents), and then compares these figures both for our geographies and the country overall.

States

  • This section shows tables ranking all 50 states for per populations rates of total cases, new cases, total deaths, and new deaths.
  • For each metric, in addition to the tables, the trends for the top states are plotted over time.
    • We only plot the top ten states for each metric so that the plots aren’t too crowded. But you can view the full 50-state rankings in the tables.

Total confirmed cases

Table of total confirmed cases per million residents (all 50 states)
Ranking State Cases Per Million
1 North Dakota 118,159
2 South Dakota 107,077
3 Iowa 84,729
4 Wisconsin 84,625
5 Nebraska 80,910
6 Utah 78,280
7 Tennessee 74,076
8 Rhode Island 73,451
9 Idaho 72,766
10 Montana 72,203
11 Wyoming 71,985
12 Illinois 71,175
13 Minnesota 70,461
14 Kansas 69,911
15 Indiana 69,406
16 Arkansas 66,820
17 Nevada 66,304
18 Oklahoma 65,918
19 Alabama 65,763
20 Mississippi 65,296
21 Missouri 62,934
22 Arizona 62,318
23 New Mexico 61,995
24 Louisiana 61,552
25 Alaska 59,666
26 Florida 55,944
27 Texas 54,945
28 Kentucky 54,790
29 Colorado 53,921
30 Georgia 53,464
31 Ohio 53,280
32 South Carolina 53,101
33 Delaware 51,979
34 Michigan 49,611
35 New Jersey 48,918
36 California 47,825
37 Massachusetts 46,939
38 North Carolina 45,754
39 Connecticut 45,657
40 New York 43,765
41 Pennsylvania 43,743
42 Maryland 41,528
43 West Virginia 40,366
44 District of Columbia 37,691
45 Virginia 35,949
46 Puerto Rico 31,952
47 Washington 29,816
48 New Hampshire 26,874
49 Oregon 24,404
50 Hawaii 14,331
51 Maine 14,094
52 Vermont 10,325

New confirmed cases

Table of new cases per million residents: rolling 3-day average (all 50 states)
Ranking State New Cases Per Million
1 Tennessee 1,252
2 California 1,084
3 Oklahoma 1,064
4 Indiana 850
5 Alabama 823
6 Arkansas 785
7 Nevada 775
8 Ohio 759
9 Utah 732
10 Mississippi 720
11 West Virginia 717
12 Arizona 690
13 Massachusetts 690
14 South Carolina 688
15 North Carolina 671
16 Pennsylvania 644
17 Delaware 632
18 Kansas 627
19 New Mexico 627
20 Wyoming 615
21 Georgia 596
22 Wisconsin 588
23 South Dakota 576
24 Kentucky 568
25 New Hampshire 558
26 New York 547
27 Illinois 544
28 Iowa 540
29 Idaho 525
30 Florida 513
31 Montana 506
32 New Jersey 497
33 Louisiana 489
34 Colorado 488
35 Minnesota 481
36 Nebraska 474
37 Texas 467
38 Alaska 460
39 Missouri 447
40 North Dakota 426
41 Virginia 420
42 Puerto Rico 384
43 Maryland 376
44 District of Columbia 364
45 Oregon 315
46 Michigan 287
47 Washington 281
48 Maine 259
49 Connecticut 250
50 Rhode Island 164
51 Vermont 157
52 Hawaii 120

Total deaths

Table of total deaths per million residents (all 50 states)
Ranking State Deaths Per Million
1 New Jersey 2,048
2 New York 1,851
3 Massachusetts 1,699
4 North Dakota 1,623
5 Connecticut 1,565
6 South Dakota 1,538
7 Rhode Island 1,533
8 Louisiana 1,514
9 Mississippi 1,481
10 Illinois 1,294
11 Michigan 1,208
12 Iowa 1,137
13 Indiana 1,099
14 Arizona 1,095
15 Pennsylvania 1,090
16 Arkansas 1,072
17 District of Columbia 1,044
18 New Mexico 1,035
19 South Carolina 958
20 Florida 957
21 Georgia 947
22 Nevada 904
23 Maryland 901
24 Alabama 895
25 Texas 894
26 Delaware 885
27 Tennessee 879
28 Minnesota 870
29 Missouri 857
30 Wisconsin 814
31 Montana 809
32 Kansas 803
33 Nebraska 778
34 Colorado 767
35 Idaho 718
36 Ohio 688
37 West Virginia 629
38 Wyoming 606
39 Kentucky 596
40 North Carolina 596
41 California 575
42 Oklahoma 559
43 Virginia 544
44 New Hampshire 482
45 Puerto Rico 428
46 Washington 416
47 Utah 360
48 Oregon 317
49 Alaska 240
50 Maine 217
51 Hawaii 197
52 Vermont 177

New deaths

Table of new deaths per million residents: rolling 3-day average (all 50 states)
Ranking State New Deaths Per Million
1 South Dakota 22
2 Iowa 14
3 Arkansas 13
4 Pennsylvania 13
5 Arizona 11
6 Illinois 11
7 Indiana 11
8 Minnesota 11
9 Nevada 11
10 North Dakota 11
11 Kansas 10
12 New Mexico 10
13 Tennessee 10
14 West Virginia 10
15 Wisconsin 10
16 Alabama 9
17 Michigan 9
18 Mississippi 9
19 Colorado 8
20 Missouri 8
21 Maryland 7
22 Massachusetts 7
23 Rhode Island 7
24 Texas 7
25 Kentucky 6
26 New Hampshire 6
27 New York 6
28 Delaware 5
29 District of Columbia 5
30 Louisiana 5
31 Nebraska 5
32 Oklahoma 5
33 South Carolina 5
34 California 4
35 Florida 4
36 Montana 4
37 New Jersey 4
38 North Carolina 4
39 Ohio 4
40 Oregon 4
41 Puerto Rico 4
42 Idaho 3
43 Maine 3
44 Utah 3
45 Vermont 3
46 Virginia 3
47 Connecticut 2
48 Georgia 2
49 Alaska 0
50 Hawaii 0
51 Washington 0
52 Wyoming 0

Counties

  • This section focuses on the county level. It shows tables with our counties ranked by percentile of U.S. counties for per population rates of total cases and total deaths.
    • Each table also shows the top five counties in the country in addition to our counties, for added perspecive.
  • In addition to the tables, our counties’ percentile for both total cases and total deaths are plotted over time.

Confirmed cases

Table showing total cases per million and percentile for all US counties. Includes our counties and the top 5 in the US for perspective.
County State Cases Per Million Raw Ranking Percentile
Crowley Colorado 260,353 1 99
Norton Kansas 214,699 2 99
Lincoln Arkansas 209,843 3 99
Bon Homme South Dakota 209,390 4 99
Dewey South Dakota 207,739 5 99
Davidson Tennessee 88,679 387 87
Richland South Carolina 58,317 1516 51
York South Carolina 47,313 2093 33
Orange California 39,921 2411 23
Pierce Washington 27,544 2802 10

Our county percentiles over time

Deaths

Table showing total deaths per million and percentile for all US counties. Includes our counties and the top 5 in the US for perspective.
County State Deaths Per Million Raw Ranking Percentile
Gove Kansas 7,587 1 99
Jerauld South Dakota 7,452 2 99
Dickey North Dakota 6,568 3 99
Gregory South Dakota 5,974 4 99
Foster North Dakota 5,919 5 99
Richland South Carolina 767 1713 45
Davidson Tennessee 725 1795 42
York South Carolina 587 2063 34
Orange California 559 2116 32
Pierce Washington 337 2564 18

Our county percentiles over time

Raw counts

Total confirmed cases

U.S.

Our states

Our counties

New confirmed cases

U.S.

Our states

Our counties

Total deaths

U.S.

Our states

Our counties

New deaths

U.S.

Our states

Our counties

Stay-at-home comparisons